The marketplace for many companies has expanded tremendously in recent years. Large national companies have expanded into international or global companies that see their marketplace as the world; and even smaller companies have expanded into the international and global marketplace to become international competitors. This market expansion has been driven by the technology that has made both voice and data communication easier.
Technological advances in recent years have allowed computer users to maintain access to their corporate or home information networks from remote locations. Therefore, regardless of someone's work or travel location, he or she can maintain contact with desired networks through "remote offices," "mobile computing," or "telecommuting."
Remote offices, as they are referred to here, are those subsidiaries or divisions of a company organization that are geographically spaced from the main or base office. These include, but are not limited to, foreign manufacturing plants, regional sales offices, and vendor organizations. Mobile computing, as it is used here, is directed to the use of transportable self-contained computers, such as laptop computers. Mobile computing also includes the method of establishing a telecommunications link to a server or network of other computers. Lastly, telecommuting, as it is used here, refers to the use of a telecommunications link, preferably through a computer, to enable an individual to conduct his or her business from any desired location, rather than be required to physically travel to a particular location.
Co-pending application Ser. No. 956,697, filed Oct. 24, 1997, entitled ENTERPRISE NETWORK MANAGEMENT USING DIRECTORY CONTAINING NETWORK ADDRESSES OF USERS AND DEVICES PROVIDING ACCESS LISTS TO ROUTERS AND SERVERS is directed to local area computer networks ("LANs") connected over a wide area network ("WAN"). The system described in this application includes firewalls to control the information flow and restrict user access from WAN circuits. According to this co-pending application, computer networks use routing or switching devices to route user messages and files to and from internal LANs and the external WAN. The messages and files of the directory services are contained on LAN server devices and the information in these messages and files are routed across the WAN.
Co-pending application Ser. No. 956,697, filed Oct. 24, 1997, also is directed to directory services products that may be used to integrate phone directory information, e-mail, and facsimile addressing across an enterprise network. In this context, an enterprise network includes two or more LANs connected through one or more WANs. LDAP consist of workstations, servers, routers, switches and hubs. Users may also dial-in to obtain access to these enterprise resources. The directory services products are software applications that communicate among themselves using a directory access protocol ("DAP") and intercommunicate with other devices, such as mail servers, with a lightweight directory access protocol ("LDAP").
Finally, co-pending application Ser. No. 956,697, filed Oct. 24, 1997, extends the concept of directory services to the management and control of an enterprise network by integrating directory technology, router management, and server management to form an enterprise network management and security solution. The features and advantages of this co-pending application, however, do not extend to the use of directory services to control access by remote users to elements of an enterprise network. It is desirable to have a system with these capabilities.